Disclaimer- I write the following with a feeling of deep shame and would like to assure anyone reading, I adore, love and worship, every last single ounce of my boy child. 

I think most parents are ,generally speaking, more relaxed with their second child.  There is more of an air of I know what I’m doing, nothing can phase me, I’m an experienced parent about you when your second child arrives. The boy is our second child. He arrived 22 months after his sister. He spent the first six months of his life feeding, smiling and sleeping, some of that, I believe is because we were more relaxed with him and so it went on and we continued to be just that  bit more laid back with our parenting.

I researched every tiny detail of precious first-born’s development. Books were devoured, the whole internet was read, I spoke at length to anybody who would listen to me about her daily routines ( I know scarleh) and anything  that was remotely abnormal, well the child was rushed to a doctor or a specialist in one case. Complete classic over parenting of a first-born child.

So like I said we relaxed a bit with the boy but sometimes this more laissez-faire attitude  brought some oversights or fuck ups, if you will, on my part………..

Example 1–  Apologies for the too much information in advance. I was out for  dinner with my friends when the boy was a toddler. The conversation got around to willies but as many of us were mothers at this stage, it was about our sons willies. Anyway a friend mentioned something about cleaning her sons willy ( fascinating dinner conversation, you’ll agree) and the detail of cleaning it. As she talked I listened in horror, the full extent of me cleaning the boys parts was a baby wipe during nappy changes and regular baths. My night was ruined. All I could think of for the rest of the night was my poor two-year old had never been cleaned properly and might be at risk of loosing his manhood due to my neglect. Nobody told me about cleaning this area. Also I kept having the niggling notion that if precious first-born had been a boy, I would’ve known this stuff. As it turns out, it was fine,I came home, woke the husband up demanding answers about the cleanliness of penises and  roaring ” WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME WILLIES NEED TO BE CLEANED” repeatedly . I’d say the neighbours loved listening to that rant.  Anyway I found out that the husband had been ensuring the cleanliness of the boy’s body and that really regular baths do the job. Phew.

via dwellingintheword.com

Example Two: About a year ago I was collecting the boy from school. He was a couple of months into his first term in school. His lovely teacher called me over and asked me would it be ok if she referred him to speech therapy. I stood there looking at her like she had two heads. “Eh sure ,I said ,but he has no speech problems”. The teacher gave me a very sympathetic smile and said she sometimes had problems understanding him. So the appointment was made. The boy was close to his fifth birthday at this stage. When the eldest was slow to start speaking she had referrals and specialist appointments by the age of 2.5. At almost five, it was pointed out to me that the boy had issues. Mortified. I avoided food shopping, eat freezer delight for a week and brought the boy to a consultant about his ears/nose/throat as I thought that was the issue and his appointment for speech therapy rolled around this Summer. Off we went to the appointment, I had been down this road before and fully expected to be discharged after assessment.  Turns out he had an issue pronouncing a letter. I hadn’t noticed. Again mortified. In the car on the way home, we repeated S sounds and by the time we got home, 15 minutes later, he no longer had an issue with S sounds. I clearly just never thought him how to pronounce it properly. Shameful really.  Since then, I have randomly asked family members and teachers and people in the shop can they understand the three-year old, for fear, I have missed out on something with her too and to get a head start before its pointed out to me when she starts school next year……

S is for Shitty Parenting

Example 3: We are now a few months into the school term. Homework time here in the evenings, is not pleasant. It is stressful. The other night, the boy, had to finish page 17 in his book. Went through his readers, there was no page 17. What book I asked? The one I don’t have, he replied. Again to my shame, the boy may have mentioned once or twice over the last week he was missing a school book. I told him I had bought all the books on the list and sent them in the first day of school. The mystery remained so I phoned a friend who has a child in the class. She text me a picture of the book. I had never seen it before. I went through my emails and found the receipt for his book list. I had never bought the book.  This categorically would not have happened with the first born’s book list. I bought all their books together though this year, there was many, I made a mistake but not only did I make a mistake, I insisted to the boy, I had bought it. I apologised and apologised again. To be fair though he only half mentioned it and the teacher hadn’t at all. I asked the boy what he done when the other children where working on their books. His reply –  “Sometimes I get a worksheet, sometimes I just watch the other children doing their work” – I cannot begin to explain the  overwhelming physical pain of guilt. I sent in a note to the teacher explaining to the teacher my mistake and said sorry another ten times to the boy.

I think I need to get a bit more precious about him and less relaxed.  None of the above would ever ever have happened  with the first-born child. I  also worry about how I’ve probably done untold damage to child number three and it hasn’t come to my attention yet……..